


sorry about the blood in your mouth. i wish it was mine.

by SmoshArrowverseFan



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, M/M, and the other students (as well as daiya) are mentioned but like. not enough to tag, chihiro is just barely there but. whatever, i was reading richard siken. it happens., idk just felt like writing some sad ishimondo and cranked this out lmao, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28279221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmoshArrowverseFan/pseuds/SmoshArrowverseFan
Summary: But Mondo is soft, and Mondo is fake, and Mondo is a liar, and Mondo is nothing like Kiyotaka in any way that matters, and he knows it.
Relationships: Ishimaru Kiyotaka/Oowada Mondo
Comments: 13
Kudos: 70





	sorry about the blood in your mouth. i wish it was mine.

**Author's Note:**

> like. i was reading richard siken and this just. happened. i intended to start one of two VERY different fics from this but uh. i'm not complaining, i'm pretty happy with how this turned out sadjfkljas.
> 
> i hope you enjoy!! fair warning for some description of blood, grief, guilt, etc... basically, the stuff you're probably expecting here lmao.

Kiyotaka has never been delicate. He has always been straightforward, rough, abrasive. He has always been the kind of person to say exactly what comes to mind, exactly the way he thinks it. Nothing good can come from tiptoeing around the truth. Life is straightforward, black and white, and so is he.

Mondo is tough. He’s standoffish, rude, quick to anger. Mondo is all of these things, and he is rough, too. He’s different from Kiyotaka, in so many ways, but they are the same in that one regard. Neither of them knows when to stop pushing. They are both boys who push too hard, and too quickly.

They butt heads constantly, and at first, there is no understanding between the the two. They see each other as opposites, as adversaries, as obstacles to overcome, as something they need to overcome to prove some point. They cannot coexist on even ground. They are in direct opposition. That much is clear early on, as they fight constantly over everything, from the mundane to the deadly. They are locked in a battle that only one can return from with his pride intact.

It comes to culmination one night, in the sauna. It’s a challenge, their final test. The one way to see which boy will emerge a man. A battle of philosophies, but really, of two terrified boys, both putting on a brave face and clinging to their black and white ideologies.

Kiyotaka takes his clothes off in the sauna to bare himself fully to his opponent.

Mondo keeps his clothes on in the sauna to prove he can endure alone.

They reach a boiling point in the sauna, but afterwards, they start to understand. There is a certain point where every rivalry escalates into something greater. Mondo and Taka reach an understanding, with everything bare and out in the open. True understanding between men. Everything out in the open.

Mondo keeps his clothes on in the sauna to prove he can endure alone.

The next day, there is another motive for murder. Secrets. Kiyotaka has always been a straightforward boy. He offers to bare his secret to the group, to take the hard path, the path of humiliation, the path of most resistance. But Kiyotaka is rough. His hard edges will carve a path out of the hurt. They always have.

Mondo is afraid. He is terrified. He has built his life on secrets and guilt and he keeps it all wrapped inside, tight, folded into his shirt, pressed in the sleeves of his jacket, tucked inside the pockets of his pants. He does his hair every morning with a can of hairspray and the memory of a man much stronger than himself.

Mondo’s rough edges are false like the rest of him. He is soft soft soft.

Kiyotaka knows the ruin that lies can bring to a man. He knows it more intimately than most. He lets the others stew in their secrets, despite every instinct in him screaming out in protest. But, despite everything, despite the rough edges and the belief in the truth, all of it… Taka trusts. He trusts in his classmates, his friends. In Mondo. They understand each other in a way no one else can comprehend, and even they can't fully make sense of it. Because, somehow, it feels so much more familiar than it could possibly be, this thing that hangs between them. He chalks it up to the fact that he had bared everything in that sauna. He believes Mondo did the same. He believes in Mondo. Kiyotaka is naive.

Kiyotaka takes his clothes off. Mondo keeps his clothes on.

But Mondo is soft, and Mondo is fake, and Mondo is a liar, and Mondo is nothing like Kiyotaka in any way that matters, and he knows it. He knows it when he opens the envelope, he knows it when he reads the words on the paper, he knows it when he denies Kiyotaka’s proposal of sharing their secrets, he knows he knows _he knows_. He knows and has always known. Though Kiyotaka didn’t realize it, though he probably would never accept it, he was the only one who left that sauna a man. Mondo has always been a scared little boy playing at being something bigger than himself. And soon the whole world would know the truth.

When Chihiro comes to him, wanting to be stronger… Mondo realizes. He realizes that Chihiro is already stronger than him. The same way Kiyotaka is, and Sakura, and Makoto, and Daiya… everyone is stronger than him. Mondo is the weak link. It’s only a matter of time before everyone else finds out. His mind is racing, everything is too fast and too slow all at once, Mondo can’t breathe, he can’t see, he can’t do anything, and-

Mondo is holding a dumbbell and standing over a slumped over Chihiro. Blood is pooling under the body. Mondo drops the dumbbell on the carpeted floor with a dull thud, his breathing coming in uneven gasps.

This isn’t strength. Mondo doesn’t know what this is. Kiyotaka would never do this. Daiya would never do this. Chihiro would never do this. This is weakness. Mondo’s weakness. Weakness that gets people killed. It's the dark blemish on his soul, the burden that is his alone to bear. This is another thing he can’t take back, another mark he can’t erase.

There is still one thing he can do, though. One promise he can keep.

He carries Chihiro’s body, and the rest of the crime scene into the girl’s locker room. He closes the door and returns to his dorm. His hands are shaking. They won’t stop. They’re covered in blood, Chihiro’s blood, Daiya’s blood, the blood of the people who trusted him and thought he was a better man than he truly is. This could be Makoto’s blood, or Sakura’s, or Aoi’s. It could be Kiyotaka’s blood.

He wants to scrub it off in the sink, but the water turns off at night, so he rubs at it with a spare shirt until his hands are raw and red and stinging. He tosses the shirt to the side. It’s evidence if anyone comes into his room, but he couldn’t care less. If he gets caught… so what? It’s what he deserves, at this point. All Mondo does is hurt, because he’s weak weak weak. It would be better for everyone if he just… went away.

Of course, things get complicated from there.

When they find the body in the morning, Mondo isn’t surprised to hear the announcement. When he sees the body, though, he nearly pukes. What kind of sick, twisted motherfucker does something like that to a dead body? Mondo has half a mind to beat the shit out of whoever it is, if he ends up finding out. He pictures his knuckles bruising and bleeding against some faceless sadist, but the face morphs between his classmates, and he feels sicker. He clenches his fists at his sides and watches over the body. It’s the least he can do.

He doesn’t miss the way Kiyotaka’s face twists in disgust, sadness, disappointment, disbelief.

Take doesn’t want to believe that any of his classmates are capable of something like this. It goes against everything he believes. Good people don’t do bad things. Kiyotaka trusts his classmates, and he would never trust a bad person. So none of them could have done this. Everything makes sense.

This doesn’t make sense.

The investigation passes in a blur, and Mondo knows, deep down, that he’s marching to his death. He feigns nonchalance, but beneath it, there’s acceptance, and beneath that, there’s fear, and farthest down, beneath all that, is a hot, heavy ball of guilt and self loathing. If you touched it, it would probably melt and seep into every crack, every part of his being, dissolving him from the inside out. Guilt was what made Mondo. He was nothing without it.

The trial is confusing to Mondo, and the guilt is eating at him, so he stays silent at every twist, not having anything to say. His blood boils at the revelation that Byakuya tampered with the crime scene, and he feels a mounting sense of dread as Kyoko leads them to Chihiro’s body, revealing the one secret Mondo had tried to protect.

From there, things very quickly point to him.

He’s afraid, yes, but really, he always knew he was going to die young. It wouldn’t be fair for him to grow to old age when his brother’s life had been cut short so abruptly. The moment he came too, holding that dumbbell, he knew that the clock was ticking ever closer to his demise, that his hours were numbered. He could accept that.

It's painful to watch Kiyotaka deny his crime so desperately, pleading, clawing for something to hold onto. But nothing makes sense anymore. Everything is crumbling, and it's all Mondo's fault.

They’d known each other for a few days. Been on good terms for even less. Still, a part of Mondo feels like he’s known the other boy for forever. Like there’s something connecting them, something deep, something timeless, some memory just out of reach. It’s on the tip of Mondo’s tongue, his entire being is itching for it. He can’t reach it in time. It hurts like a deep cut.

He listens to Monokuma tell everyone how strong Chihiro was, how strong Daiya was, and how weak Mondo himself is. He can’t look them in the eyes. Of course he can’t. When it comes down to it, that’s the kind of man he is. The kind who will never be able to face what he’s done.

He never gets that chance.

Mondo is a guilty man, a scared little boy. He’s wearing his brother’s boots and his best friend’s grief and his very own guilt. He’s rough around the edges, but none of that roughness is his own. He shrugs it on like his older brother’s jacket, and it protects his soft insides as best as it can. But every disguise is just that. Every mask cracks, breaks, and falls.

Mondo is weak, but he faces his death head on.

It’s the one thing he can do.

Kiyotaka is gasping for air as he watches Mondo go, as if breathing hard enough will suck the trial room back in time, will allow Take to swallow it all, keep time from marching forward, keep everything from breaking.

Taka is left with a deep aching, a want for more of something, something he can never have. He’s left with a broken philosophy, a broken promise, a broken heart. Mondo dies and Kiyotaka is left with nothing.

Mondo dies with gritted teeth, a heart heavy with guilt, the only roughness left his very own. For the first time in his life, he is standing on his own. He stands on his own for the final time, and he falls.

Kiyotaka dies shattered in a million pieces, just like the morals he clung to like a lifeline. He dies while hiding within someone else’s rough edges instead of his own for the first time in his life.

They don’t get a happy ending. Not Daiya, not Chihiro, not Mondo, not Kiyotaka. Instead, they get twisted and tangled together, broken and dissolved, pulled together and pushed apart all at once. They’re weak when they need to be strong and strong when they need to be weak. In the end, none of them reach any permanent strength. They never get the chance.

How tragic.

**Author's Note:**

> gotta love ishimondo. maybe one day i'll write something where they get to be happy :)
> 
> thank you sm for reading!! if you have any thoughts, comments and kudos are always appreciated, and i hope you have a great day. also, happy holidays!!


End file.
